IU Talking Points: Shoot more 3s! Plus, closer look at Bloomington to Tuscaloosa pipeline.

BLOOMINGTON – For the first time in a long time, Indiana made a genuine long-distance commitment Tuesday night. And against statistical expectation, it did not go well.

Indiana’s 2-of-12 first-half shooting performance from behind the 3-point line deepened impressions the Hoosiers are not a particularly effective outfit from distance offensively. Those impressions miss the mark, coach Mike Woodson noted postgame.

“I thought in the first half we got some good looks,” he said. “I charted there were eight or nine open shots that we just didn’t make. Those empty possessions that you leave on the table, and you come down and either we fouled or they scored, I mean, it wasn’t a good combination for us, the way we were playing.”

It’s likely not all the shots Woodson referred to were 3s. But IU undeniably missed some good looks from behind the arc that might have stemmed Purdue’s rising tide during a first half that ultimately got badly out of hand.

DOYEL: Xavier Johnson is struggling, and the outside world is just piling on

INSIDER: Mike Woodson's third season at IU is teetering on the edge. And that makes folks nervous.

That raises a more nuanced conversation about where Indiana is from a 3-point shooting perspective.

IU’s season-wide 3-point number (33.7%) is relatively pedestrian. But in Big Ten play that number ticks up to 36.6%, even after an 8-of-24 performance against Purdue. Each of the six games in which the Hoosiers have shot 37.5% or better have occurred beginning with Kansas on Dec. 16.

Individual numbers have trended upward as well.

Trey Galloway is shooting 37.8% beginning with that Kansas game. Remove Mackenzie Mgbako’s 1-of-13 start over his first five games, and he’s shooting 39.7% since, as well as 46.2% in Big Ten play. Kel’el Ware and Malik Reneau are shooting 22-of-54 (40.7%) combined for the season. And CJ Gunn is now 7-of-15 in Big Ten play.

Volume remains an issue. IU is dead last in Big Ten play in 3-point attempts as a percentage of overall field goal attempts, the Hoosiers’ conference number tracking almost identically (27.5% to 27.6%) to the full season.

But Woodson wasn’t just, to borrow a British phrase, talking broken biscuits Tuesday when he lamented the 3-point line’s inability to help Indiana stay close to Purdue. The Hoosiers have improved behind the arc, both individually and collectively.

It just didn't show when it was needed most Tuesday.

Which means …

… it’s time to shoot … more? Yes, more.

How much more, it’s difficult to say. The key for Woodson will always be shot quality, something he clearly didn’t feel was lacking Tuesday.

Indiana will be post-centric so long as Ware and Reneau produce down low. Reneau is a particularly adept passer, while Ware is often favored — for obvious reasons — in ball-screen situations, his length, range athleticism making him a versatile threat.

But both can also step out beyond the arc. Reneau is a willing passer, with the joint-best assist rate on the team and a coach who last season built an offense around his predecessor’s remarkable passing range.

Without much fanfare (admittedly, because of results), Indiana has developed an eight-man rotation with five legitimate 3-point threats, across virtually every position in Woodson’s rotation. If Xavier Johnson can find his shot, that number rises to six.

Bearing in mind Talking Points was advocating for a wholesale shift to zone defense recently, only to see Indiana ditch it and build one of the Big Ten’s best defenses in conference play — until it slammed into a wall Tuesday night — this advocacy for more 3-point shooting might best be taken with a grain of salt.

But numbers don’t lie, Indiana’s offense can’t score enough and this team might well have the personnel now to remedy that from behind the arc in a way it hasn’t in years.

With difficult games ahead at Wisconsin and Illinois, it might be worth considering.

The BloomingTuscaloosa pipeline

As the fanfare died down around Kalen DeBoer’s move from Washington to Alabama, something familiar emerged in its wake: a string of former IU football staffers bound for or already in Tuscaloosa to join the Hoosiers’ old offensive coordinator.

At time of writing, both Nick Sheridan and Kane Wommack have been confirmed as part of DeBoer’s first staff in Tuscaloosa. Sheridan will handle tight ends as he did for DeBoer in Bloomington and Seattle, while Wommack will coordinate the Crimson Tide defense.

It’s also been suggested that William Inge, who was in Bloomington at the same time as DeBoer and went with DeBoer to Fresno State and then Washington, could move to Alabama. David Ballou, Tom Allen’s former head of strength and conditioning, looks set to remain with the Tide through the transition from Nick Saban to DeBoer. Ballou is considered among the foremost coaches in his field.

What to make of the sudden pipeline from Indiana to Alabama? A few thoughts:

∎ First, DeBoer — like virtually any coach — has shown a preference for keeping assistants he knows and trusts. It wasn’t surprising, for example, to see him bring Sheridan to Washington, given that DeBoer vociferously recommended Sheridan as his replacement in Bloomington.

∎ Second, any coach will want some consistency in staffing from one stop to the next. With so much to take on, from the transfer portal to NIL to the more traditional aspects of transition, DeBoer will value the working knowledge of a staff as familiar with him as he is with it, a primary reason Sheridan is one of four offensive staffers expected to come with DeBoer.

∎ Third, with regard to Wommack specifically: The old paths toward moving up the head-coaching ladder are becoming outdated. Increasingly, the Big Ten and SEC fund, staff and behave differently than the rest of college football, and being hired into a head coaching job in one of those conferences is going to be easier with greater working knowledge of life in said conferences.

Couple that to the difficulties facing Group of Five head coaches now, and Wommack’s decision to leave the head job at South Alabama for the defensive coordinator role 200 miles to the north is understandable. The cold reality at that level anymore is success — which Wommack enjoyed, winning 22 games and attending two bowls in three years — will only make your roster more susceptible to portal poaching. And constantly starting over in a job like that becomes really difficult.

∎ Finally, it’s worth saying, college football remarked at how surprising and impressive Indiana’s success was in 2019 and '20. Multiple players and coaches from that period have gone on to successful careers elsewhere in college or the pros. So while Bloomington to Tuscaloosa might not be a well-worn path, it’s not hugely surprising to see Alabama’s new coach reaching for some old IU ties.

Trivia

From which two venues did planners draw inspiration when building the initial designs for the building that became Assembly Hall?

Odds & Ends

∎ Given Curt Cignetti’s first spring season might be the most anticipated in Bloomington in years, it will be interesting to see where it lands on the calendar. IU’s spring break runs March 10-17, with past coaches taking both approaches to that gap. Some started practice beforehand, allowed for the break and stretched the season past it. Others preferred to start later, and not have to navigate the stoppage. Cignetti’s purposeful personality would seem to favor the latter approach, but time will tell.

∎ This weekend’s Spalding Hoophall Classic concluded Sunday with no commitment from Montverde Academy five-star forward Derik Queen. At this point, a decision still seems likely sooner than later, but given the inexactitude of rumblings around previous potential commitment dates, it’s probably best to just assume Queen’s recruitment remains open until he lays out a firm plan.

Q&A with Liam McNeeley: Why IU and pitching Hoosiers to friends

∎ IU’s men’s basketball schedule will reach the first of two weeklong layoffs following Friday’s game at Wisconsin. The Hoosiers enjoy eight days between their trips to Madison and Champaign, with another eight-day break built in between the Feb. 10 game at Purdue and a Feb. 18 visit from Northwestern. One bye week per Big Ten season is customary. The additional gap comes thanks to a schedule reflecting the elongated calendar stretched by the late arrival of the first full calendar week of January. For the same reason, the Big Ten tournament will fall on the second weekend of spring break this year, rather than the first.

∎ Speaking with Rhett Lewis on IU’s in-house “Under the Hood” football series, defensive coordinator Bryant Haines specifically mentioned Indiana’s defensive tackle rotation as a piece of his returning defense that stands out early. Haines also mentioned returning coverage tools in his new secondary as potential strengths to build his first defense around.

Answer

Eggers & Higgins, the architectural firm commissioned to design Assembly Hall, served in the same capacity during the university’s construction of Memorial Stadium. The idea for Assembly Hall — two theaters facing a common stage — was taken from Memorial Stadium’s two-stand interrupted-bowl design.

To make that work architecturally, Eggers modeled Assembly Hall’s roof construction (and therefore building infrastructure) after Dorton Arena in Raleigh, N.C. That inspiration gave Assembly Hall what has become its iconic swooping roof design.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana basketball 3-point issues, IU-to-Alabama football coaching tree